A Bible in your bedside drawer has always been one of those comforting mediocre hotel room givens, like toiletries of dubious provenance and chocolates – if you’re lucky enough to get them – that taste of cardboard. But could this be coming to an end?

Travelodge is currently coming under fire in the UK for removing Bibles from all its hotel rooms, “because of diversity reasons” and “‘in order not to discriminate against any religion”. Predictably, there’s a firestorm of people on Twitter vowing to switch allegiance to Premier Inn, and the Church of England declaring that: “It seems both tragic and bizarre that hotels would remove the word of God for the sake of ergonomic design, economic incentive or a spurious definition of the word ‘diversity’.”

In actual fact, the story isn’t as extreme as it sounds at first – the Bibles, which were always provided free of charge by the Gideon Society, haven’t been burned or chucked out – Travelodge says they are being “retained” and will be doled out by reception on request. What’s more, in surely the most telling part of this story, Travelodge says this decision was taken in 2007, and the hotels have been steadily implementing it since then, without receiving any complaints until the Daily Mail got wind of it last week.

In response to a growing number of toiletry bags being left behind at its hotels, Travelodgeconducted a study of UK travelers that revealed they were grossly underestimating the value of the bag and its contents.

Louis Vuitton and other designer bags are obviously worth a pretty penny, but we're talking about the contents of everyday toiletry bags that, while seemingly meaningless, carry a surprisingly high replacement cost. The study found that while the average toiletry bag and its contents are worth about $240, the British travelers estimated that they were worth only $80.

This, obviously, got us thinking. How much is our bag and its contents worth? We must admit we are very simple travelers -- we don't have a lot of stuff -- but a quick inventory revealed that even the most basic items would still be kind of annoying to replace. Here's a rundown of our bag:

In a quest to raise money for charity as well as for purposes of publicity, Travelodge constructed a demo of their new room design at the summit of Britain’s highest peak, Ben Nevis (4,409 feet), at the end of June. A team of 36 made the 11-mile round trip journey, including the construction of the room, in about eight and a half hours. It was built upon the still-remaining snow and consisted of two walls, a bed, a duvet, a sheet with four pillows, a chair and a picture.

The effort, while on one hand only a novelty, was able to raise almost $79,000 for charity, which we obviously applaud. Apparently this is not the first time Ben Nevis has hosted a hotel. The Temperance Hotel operated at the summit from 1894 to 1916 as a barracks for climbers during the summer months.

To celebrate its first hotel above a comedy club, Travelodge has rolled out a "loo laughs" campaign at London's new 131-room Bethnal Green location in hopes of keeping its guests entertained at all times. That's right -- there are jokes and cartoons on the toilet paper.

The idea was inspired by the hotel's position on top of British comedian Lee Hurst's Backyard Comedy Club, but it was also backed up by a bit of data. Travelodge ran a survey of 2,000 Britons that revealed 49% of them like to read on the loo.

Based on what we've seen, it doesn't appear they got much professional help with the joke writing, despite its location. The two samples we've seen haven't exactly been side-splitters. For example, Why are men better than dogs? Because they have only two muddy feet to walk into the house. Or, worse: How many men does it take to change the roll of toilet paper? We don't know... it's never happened. Oh, dear.

According to the story, Leo Nocentelli, a guitarist from the Meters Experience, attempted to check into the hotel along with two other members of the band. When he handed over his credit card to cover incidentals during the stay, the hotel manager refused to take it.

Except there was nothing wrong with the card—just the manager, who somehow didn't like the look of these guys. When Nocentelli's friend later showed up to see what was wrong, the manager told him he didn't accept credit cards from black people.

Um. We always knew Travelodge was kind of an outdated brand, but...seriously?

Most of the time, a writer's fate is to be stuck behind a blank computer screen, itching for an excuse to get up and go do something else. Once in a while, however, some writers actually score gigs worth envying, as in the case of celebrity journalist Neil Sean, who's become the first-ever writer in residence for budget hotel chain Travelodge.

As part of the deal, Sean will travel to some of the brand's 504 European hotels throughout England, Ireland and Spain, while writing his latest book, How To Live Like A Celebrity For FREE. Interesting title. In the guide, Sean will apparently share some money-saving tips he's learned over the years from interviewing A-listers like J-Lo, Simon Cowell and Beyonce.

Last week The New York Times’ Frugal Traveler got scammed after booking an apartment on Craigslist and that sucks. So being the nice people that we are we thought we’d give you a list of cheap London hotels so you don’t have to trawl for a cheap flat and end up getting burnt. Also worth noting: people in London use Gumtree over Craigslist, anyways.

Tune Hotel Westminster

The Tune Hotel Westminster is one of our favourite cheap hotels. It has everything you need from a budget hotel – a bed and a bathroom. There’s also a TV, but, like everything else you need to pay to use it. Even with all of the extras, though, it still works out pretty cheap: under £60 when we stayed there.

Make sure you set your alarms this Wednesday and do not oversleep! That's because UK budget hotel chain, Travelodge, is holding one of its famous £9 room sales.

The sale kicks off at 6am UK time with thousands of rooms available at Travelodges all over the UK.

The £9 rooms (approx $14 USD) will be available on selected dates throughout the whole of next year. Yes, that's right-- we said the whole of next year, from 1st January 2011 - 28th December. 2011. And we thought Christmas was already over!

So if you’re after a cheap room for the night, log onto the website this Wednesday, December 29 at 6am. All rooms are subject to availability, and are valid for a limited time only.

With over 300 Travelodges in the UK, 10 of which are located in London there are plenty to choose from. But remember, most of the good dates and locations sell out fast so be super quick!

Trouble is brewing in budget UK bedland. The catalyst? Premier Inn’s promotion, fronted by an E list celeb (Lenny Henry) and offering 1,000,000 rooms for £29 on stays from Thursdays to Mondays until April 2010.

The T&Cs were a little daunting – stay two nights (why would you want to stay two nights in a Premier Inn?) or one on a Sunday, book 21 days ahead (if we ever get so organised that we’ll book a motel three weeks in advance, we’ll rip out our own fingernails) – but apart from that, fair enough.

Except, then Premier Inn’s main rivals, Travelodge, checked out the offer and discovered that there was a confusing, two tier booking system on the website.

If you click on Lenny Henry’s face, under “Premier Offers”, you’ve got a 24 per cent chance of bagging a cheapo room. But if you click on the “Quick Booking” facility just to its left – which you might be more likely to do if you had a specific date in mind – there’s less than 1 per cent chance of getting one.

As reported by The Times, Travelodge – which is currently boasting rooms for £9 in its Easter sale - have whipped it up, lodging a formal complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority , mentioning it in its weekly mailshot and setting up an anti-Premier Inn petition.

But it may just have backfired. Not only are people hitting the comments boards slagging off Travelodge for the state of its rooms, but it’s also alerted its entire customer base to a cheap deal with its rival. Meanwhile, Premier Inn have vowed to correct the booking “anomaly”.

We still think it was bad form of Premier Inn not to have the cheap prices running throughout the website, but Travelodge, you’re not looking good right now. Frankly, we’ll be boycotting the pair of you.

We've been variously hot and cold about hotel chain iPhone apps. As a rule we embrace anything that can help us travel easier while already on the road, and we certainly embrace it if it lives in the App Store. But hotel apps fall into that dicey category where we're not sure that the bother that goes into them is worth whatever comes out.

Hotel iPhone applications generally help you find a nearby chain hotel and check in through your rewards account. Sometimes they may automatically dial customer service. All of which is great except people rarely book within just one chain. Price is usually the most important factor, which means using a search engine, and rarely is someone in so much of a pinch that exact GPS-pinpointed location matters.

As for checking in, well, we're not talking about flights. The hotel will still be there waiting when you arrive, and you'll still have to wait in line to get it. Checking in doesn't have to happen from the road.

You’re headed to Europe and despite all the talk about airline deals, getting there has eaten up a lot of your budget. So you're going to stay on the cheap. Yesterday, we listed our Five Best Budget Brands in Europe so that you will know the best hotels to hit up and what you get for your money.

But you also need to know which ones to avoid. Sure, the prices are right at these budget brands but there are times you may want to pay a little more for your peace of mind.

In need of a cheapo vacation? Thinking that the $100 and $150 deals we were talking about here are out of your price range this time round? It’s time to rediscover the joys of the budget hotel.

And while Europe doesn’t have quite as many as America (in other words, there isn't a choice of about five chain motels at every motorway exit), it’s still possible to know roughly what’s in store when you book into a budgie room. Here are our Five Best Budget Brands in Europe. Tune in tomorrow for our picks for the worst.